Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel (1992)
Right after Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California, in 1955, a toy salesman in town for a convention brings his wife with him so they can both go to Disneyland. They stay at a rundown place called the Sunset Motel nearby. Soon the wife is having an affair with a man staying at the motel. The husband hires a psychotic criminal to spy on them, the wife and her lover plan to murder the husband, and the voyeuristic motel manager is spying on everybody.
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Brilliant and touching
It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Sherilyn Fenn and husband Whip Hubley arrive at the Sunset Motel in Anaheim. He's there for a toy convention. She's there to see Disneyland, which has just opened. They fight constantly. He hires psychotic beatnik David Hewlitt to spy on her. She's sleeping with David Johansen. She starts having strange lapses in memory. He dies during one of those lapses. This rather lame noir homage with shades of David Lynch feels designed to be a cult film, and is generally as lame as those kinds of movies are. One of the few bright spots is Paul Bartel who plays the motel manager. This film has the most idiotic and poorly handled twist ending I have seen in many years.
I saw this film when it first came out. It has taken me years to track it down again (I recalled it being named Murder At The Sunset Hotel). I loved it back then and with some of the plot bending twists I wanted to see it again to get a better grasp of things. Yes, it does indeed leave you confused in a few scenes but it is engaging throughout. both visually and thru its dialogue and unique & intricate plot. The feel is gritty yet sleek. Ugly yet beautiful. It leaves you with a taste in your mouth that you wonder is it pleasant or not. Spoiler: Pay attention to the very first dialogue exchange between the main characters.
The movie was an attempt at film noir and while it succeeded visually, it failed story-wise.For most of the film, the viewer is too confused, particularly in two of the scenes where time and space seem to totally change, and one of the main characters (played by Sherilyn Fenn) has no idea what is going on. We don't either. The film also is too talky. It desperately needs a bit more action.On the plus side, the colors in here are nice and the characters are strangely reminiscent of the ones you would see in David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" television series (in which Fenn also starred.) Fenn, by the way, is easy on this male's eyes!!The 1950s lingo and references were fun (Davy Crockett cap, '50s products such as 20-mule team borax, beatniks, etc.).All in all, however, the best part of this film was the title.
A few eye-filling bikini shots of Sherilyn Fenn are not reason enough to sit through this self-conscious, forced, artificial, illogical film noir "homage". Roughly half the dialogue is gibberish in desperate need of translation; perhaps the characters were inventing a new form of space language or something. It's one of those rare films where absolutely NOTHING works, and after about 20 minutes you'll be ready to give up on it. (*)